The Tory choice: Suella Braverman or Andy Street?
Britain wants a change. That much is clear. Taken together, last week’s local election results, the contest for executive mayors and the by-election in Blackpool South, where the Tories were crushed by a huge 26 point swing to Labour, point to a political upheaval.
Incumbent governments almost invariably get a kicking at local elections. But this was a shellacking — the worst performance by the Conservatives since 1998 in areas that went to the polls on Thursday. It was a very, very bad day for the Tories. What is worse is that they don’t seem to know what to do about it.
The story of these elections will turn out to be, not Labour’s stately progress to power, but how the Tories’ lost the taste for it.
Labour was the chief beneficiary of this rout. This strengthens the case for a win by Keir Starmer at the general election. But not with any great outpouring of enthusiasm. Despite the Tory collapse and some pretty impressive mayoral results, Labour lags behind in some councils compared to its position in the 1990s. This is chiefly due to inroads by Independents , Greens and Liberal Democrats.
Strikingly, Labour lost control of Oldham council in the Pennines where independent candidates ran on a pro-Palestine ticket. Still, Starmer’s quiet, dogged and disciplined leadership has transformed the party from unelectable to electable. But if Labour wins the big one it will hit the road with a P – plate stuck to its bumper.
None of this is particularly surprising. After 14 years in power and enough Prime Ministers for a five-aside football team, the Tories are tired, fractious and devoid of fresh ideas. Banging the same old drum about small boats and benefit scroungers isn’t going to get Britain moving again. The culture wars don’t cut it. These results show beyond doubt that voters want to move on.
The country is becalmed, like a ship adrift whose engine has packed up. The economy is stagnant; debt is rising; so are NHS waiting lists; Brexit is plainly not working in any measurable sense; the soaring cost of living and a decade of falling real wages are hurting average families badly.
The least important issue arising out of these results is the fate of Rishi Sunak. Whether he survives as Prime Minister to lead the Tories into the general election is a matter of supreme indifference to the country. If yet another change of leader is parachuted into Number 10 without the blessing of the electorate, voters will just roll their eyes and switch off.
Observing the different reactions from Tory MPs to the unfolding disaster as the votes were counted was instructive. It gave you a sense both of the party’s despair and its slender grasp on reality.
When politicians insist they know what’s best for the country but aren’t really listening, when they become fixated by what they think ought to be happening instead of reading the battlefield, they inevitably lose perspective. Boris Johnson, at the moment of his downfall, suffered from this delusion when he referred to “the herd”.
The Tory reaction to last week’s disastrous performance ranged from disbelief through realism to denial. This pretty much sums up its split personality. Andrew Mitchell, the square-jawed Deputy Foreign Secretary and former tank officer, should know about the need to keep your head. Yet asked what he made of reports that Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands was about to lose (as indeed he did), Mitchell replied: “Whether he wins or nearly wins (sic) this is an extraordinary result for the Conservative party.” Into the valley of death…
Street himself ran a campaign distinctly devoid of current Tory impulses. He ran as Andy : competent, rational Andy, not Tory Andy. He lost by a whisker. Asked what he felt about the party moving further to the Right in the aftermath, the former managing director of John Lewis said : “I would advise against that .”
The contrast between Street and the louder voices in the Tory party epitomises the struggle for its future direction. Street has worked hard to bring investment to Britain’s second city, but he eschews culture war politics. “It’s not about philosophy and posturing,” he told the Financial Times. “It’s about delivering on the ground.”
In March, after the Prime Minister warned that “mob rule” was descending on British streets during the Gaza protests, Street said the comments did not “fit with my world view”. He criticised Sunak for binning the northern leg of HS2 and has since worked closely with Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester’s Labour mayor, on an alternative.
Street’s determination that Birmingham, as one of the most diverse cities in Britain, should also be the most tolerant, is in stark contrast to war drums beaten by the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Susan Hill, the distinctly sub-par Tory candidate in the London mayoral contest.
Braverman is possibly the most controversial and divisive figure in British politics. A woman described by supporters and foes alike as personally “charming” , has become the Brexit-championing, anti-immigrant, anti-woke warrior of the Right. She is almost as far removed from Andy Street’s brand of conservative politics as Marine Le Pen is from Emmanuel Macron’s free-market centrism.
Suella Braverman was doing the rounds last weekend calling for the party to move yet further to the Right . She says Starmer’s Labour are a bunch of hard- Left maniacs. She is not paying attention.
Elections are almost invariably won on the centre ground. Margaret Thatcher’s three victories were the exception. Boris Johnson rode on the slipstream of Brexit until he fell off, brought down by his many boastful inadequacies.
The contrast between Street and Braverman epitomises the choices the party now faces: reason and competence versus megaphone ideology and wedge politics. Does the Right think salvation lies in chasing Reform UK and the shadow of Nigel Farage, or reassembling a coalition of the reasonable?
Tories who favour the latter are whistling in the wind. The electorate won’t buy it. Therein lies a fracture and a breakaway party either of the centre or the Right.
When it comes down to it , Brits, time and again, have opted for moderation and for what works. Today’s Conservative Party is neither of those things.
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